Bart Staes - Member of European Parliament (European Greens Party)

Bart Staes is since 1999 a Member of the European Parliament for Flanders. He is a member of Groen, part of the European Greens. His particular interests are the environment and peace movement. He is a strong supporter of more transparency and another European Union. He currently is a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. He is also a Member of the EP Delegation with the US and with Israel. As a progressive MEP he focuses on more coherence between all European policies. What you give with your right hand, you should not take with your left hand. Het argues in favour of more coherence between Development Policy on the one hand and Trade, Agricultural and Fisheries Policy on the other hand.

Christiane Timmerman - University of Antwerp

Christiane Timmerman holds a Master in Psychology, an Advanced Master in Social and Cultural Anthropology and a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology for which she conducted extended field research in Turkey. She is a full professor / research professor (ZAPBOF) at the University of Antwerp and director of CeMIS. She has published in a variety of international journals such as European Sociological Review, Ethnicities, Population, Space and Place, Turkish Studies, Current Sociology; as editor of and author of/in peer reviewed books with a.o. Routledge, Ashgate, Palgrave and in many book chapters on international migration dynamics, gender and migration and the integration of migrant groups. She is member of the Board of Directors of the European Research Network on Migration, IMISCOE. In her function as director of CeMIS, she has built extensive experience coordinating large scale research projects on international migration and integration (see above): EU FP7 project RESL.eu ‘Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe’ (2013-18), EU FP7 project EUMAGINE ‘Imagining Europe from the outside’ (2009-13), Policy Centre on Civic Integration (co-promotor) (2012 – 2015), BELSPO project FEMIGRIN ‘Factors and Dynamics Affecting and Explaining Female Migration and Integration in Belgian Society’ (2008-2010); IWT Flanders project BET YOU ‘School careers of immigrant children’ (2009-12). She is also supervisor of many (accomplished) PhD projects in the field of international migration and integration. With the IMISCOE network she is involved in the organization of the International IMISCOE 3C PhD Winter School Programme “Changing Europe – Changing Migration” 2013-2017 - Antwerp (2014), Rotterdam (2015) and Liège (2017) - in cooperation with Erasmus University (Netherlands) and the Université de Liège (Belgium). Furthermore, she is the promoter of the international UCSIA Summer School ‘Religion, Culture and Society’, since 2002.

Dimokritos Kavadias - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Dimokritos Kavadias is professor at the Political Science Department of the Free University of Brussels (VUB). He is since 2015 the director of the Brussels Information, Documentation and Research centre (BRIO), located at the VUB. He started as a graduated researcher on in 1993, and developed expertise in Delphi-methodology, survey methodology among immigrant groups, oral history reconstruction through qualitative interviewing and focused interviews as well as focus group research. His PhD (2004) focused on the impact of schools and teachers on political attitudes of adolescents, using survey material as well as qualitative analysis of interviews. From 2005 he supervised research on policy research projects commissioned by the National Institute for Statistics on educational statistics (2002, 2005), the King-Baudouin-foundation on civic education (2006-2009), the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism on extremist attitudes (CGKR, 2006), the Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance on teacher development (VVOB, 2009), and the Flemish Ministry of Education (2005, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2014).

The more fundamental research focuses on the influence of schools and teachers on the shaping of political attitudes and knowledge of adolescents (political socialisation). He is mainly interested in the political effects of socialization and schooling, using large-scale samples of pupils, in schools and, more recently, using international comparative micro-data on pupils.

Dimokritos Kavadias has a thorough expertise on survey methodology and multi-method project management. He was fully responsible for the survey of immigrants in the Brussels-Capital Region in 1995 (Moroccans, Turks, and compared with a sample of lower educated Belgians, n=1200) , 12th graders in 1997 (4722 pupils, 670 teachers and 63 principals), 11th and 12th graders in Brussels in 2001 (n=800), the Flemish part of the International Civics and Citizenship Study 2009 (8th grade pupils, teachers, principals), teacher surveys on civic education (2009), teacher surveys in 2010-11 using on-line questionnaires, and combining quantitative designs with qualitative designs (either in the phase of survey preparation, or in the phase deepening explanations of exploring new pathways after quantitative surveys). The current methodological work of Dimokritos Kavadias concerns (in close collaboration with Prof. Benoit Rihoux - UCL) the management, of the Methodological Assistance and Support Team within the interuniversity Partirep- Project.

Dirk Vanheule - University of Antwerp

Dirk Vanheule holds law degrees of the universities of Ghent, Toronto and Antwerp. He is professor of public law and currently serves as dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Antwerp, where he also is chairperson of the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS). His teaching and research interests include constitutional law, public procedural law and migration and asylum law. He is editor of the Belgian Journal for Migration Law (Tijdschrift voor Vreemdelingenrecht). As advocate he has appeared in i.a. the Belgian Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights in asylum- and migration-related cases.

Evrard Claessens - University of Antwerp

Florian Trauner is a Research Professor at the Institute for European Studies and the Department of Political Science of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is also Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Natolin Campus, where he teaches on immigration, asylum and border management in the EU (joint course with Sandra Lavenex). His research interests concern the field of European integration, in particular EU justice and home affairs (migration, asylum, Schengen, return policies and counter-terrorism), fundamental rights and rule of law promotion and EU-Western Balkans relations. His research has appeared in a number of journals including the Journal for European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics,European Journal of Migration and Law, and publishing houses such as Oxford University Press.p

Germán Calfat - University of Antwerp

Germán Calfat is a full-time lecturer at the IOB, where he teaches the following courses at the Master of Globalisation and Development: a) Regression Analysis and Inference, b) Trade Policy: Poverty Impact and Policy Implications and c) Assessing the Impact of Trade Policies and d) International Migration and Development . He is holder of a Master of Arts in Economics , with specialization in International Trade and Development, from the KUL and a PhD in Economics from the UA. His focus of research is on applied trade models, having taught and worked extensively on the impact evaluation of trade liberalisation and preferential trade agreements. His actual research agenda is on the channels by which migration impacts welfare and the links between migration/remittances and poverty and human capital, using both modelling techniques and impact evaluation methods.

Herwig Verschueren - University of Antwerp

Herwig Verschueren is professor of International and European Labour and Social Security law at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). He is also a visiting professor at the University of Brussels (VUB). From 1992 to 2004, he was a civil servant at the European Commission working in the field of free movement of workers and the co-ordination of social security schemes. His research concentrates on European social law and more specifically on the legal position of migrant workers and persons with regard to labour and social security rights. He is the author and co-author of books, articles and reports and regularly acts as a consultant for Belgian and European public authorities, including the European Commission, on these issues.

Hilde Greefs - University of Antwerp

Hilde Greefs is full-time senior lecturer in social history at the University of Antwerp. She gives general courses in modern history, social and economic history, and more specialist courses in migration history. For her research activities she is connected to the Centre for Urban History. Her research focuses on social and economic history during the long nineteenth century (1750-1914), with a particular interest in migration, social and economic networks, and maritime trade in port cities.

Hilde Vautmans - Member of European Parliament (ALDE party)

Hilde VAUTMANS is a Belgian Member of European Parliament (ALDE, Open Vld) since 12 January 2015. She is member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Security and Defence Committee and the delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. As a substitute she is a member of the delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

For the ALDE group she is the Vice-coordinator on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence. She also acts as the delegation leader of Open Vld in the European Parliament.

Hilde started her political career at the office of, then Prime Minister, Guy VERHOFSTADT advising him in the fields of foreign and military affairs, external aid and equal opportunities. She was during two legislatures Member of the Belgian House of Representatives, while being the group leader of Open Vld for a while. She switched to being the secretary general of Open Vld in the House of Representatives and from there on joined the EP.

She combines her office as MEP with being an alderwoman in the City of Sint-Truiden, responsible for education, agriculture, military affairs and environment. She is the mother of two children.

Ive Marx - University of Antwerp

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Jogchum Vrielink - University of Leuven

Jogchum(PhD) teaches at Université Saint-Louis, Brussels and at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). His research topics include discrimination law, fundamental and human rights (freedom of expression and freedom of religion in particular) and legal anthropology. He has published widely in national and international journals and books on these issues. Furthermore, he is frequently invited as guest lecturer and speaker on issues pertaining to his specializations, and actively partakes in public and media debates.

Jolien Potemans - Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen

Jolien Potemans holds the position of Policy Officer Protection with the Flemish Refugee Action in Brussels. She is focal point for legal and policy questions on the asylum procedure in Belgium. She currently works on a policy note on safe and legal channels for refugees to access protection in Belgium. Jolien was previously staff member at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, where she was legal assistant to the Head of Legal Support and Litigation. She monitored international and national legal developments for the ELENA Weekly Legal Update (EWLU), and contributed to the Asylum Information Database (AIDA) and the European Database of Asylum Law (EDAL). In 2016, Jolien was Research Associate Migration Law Clinic (VU Amsterdam), where she conducted research on complex topics in the field of European migration law and wrote legal advice in the context of cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Jolien holds a law degree from the KU Leuven, Belgium, and a diploma in International Migration and Refugee Law from the VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Karel Neels - University of Antwerp

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Lore Van Praag - University of Antwerp

Lore VAN PRAAG is Project Manager of the RESL.eu and coordinator of the qualitative team, is a post-doctoral researcher and research coordinator at UA, CeMIS. She has worked as a research coordinator for a large-scale Strategic Basic Research (Validiv) focused on the valorisation of linguistic diversity in primary education in Flanders and was associated as a Guest Lecturer at Ghent University. She is an expert in topics such as ethnography, qualitative research methods, education, migration, tracking systems, language, gender, religion, and ethnicity. She has published in national and international peer-reviewed journals mainly in the field of education and ethnicity.

Luuk van Middelaar - Chair in European Values at the Université Catholique de Louvain

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Maurice Crul - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Maurice Crul is a full Professor of Sociology at the Free University in Amsterdam and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He received his PhD degree in 2000. In the last twenty years Maurice Crul mostly worked on the topic of children of immigrants, first within the Dutch context and in the last six years in a comparative European and Transatlantic context. He initiated and coordinated the international TIES project, the first international comparative project on the second generation in Europe. The idea behind TIES was to compare the same ethnic group with the same starting position in different national integration contexts. The international research project TIES (The Integration of the European Second generation) involved partners in ten European countries: http://www.tiesproject.eu/. The TIES project is with a budget of more than 6 million Euros the biggest comparative research project in this field in Europe. In total more than 35 researchers (among which where 15 PhD students) worked on this project form 12 European countries. The TIES project finished in 2011. The second largest project he coordinated is the ELITES project. In this project successful second generation adolescents are interviewed about their pathways to success. This project is funded through the largest individual European Research Grant (ERC) in Europe. Maurice Crul is the chair of the international IMISCOE network, a network of 36 research institutes on migration and ethnic studies in Europe. In 2014 he was a distinguished visiting professor at the City University in New York where he developed together with Richard Alba, Nancy Foner (CUNY professors) and Vivian Louie the New York ELITES project. Since 2013 Maurice Crul is the Dutch team coordinator of the EU’s FP7 large-scale project RESL.eu.

Mike Raco - University College London

Mike Raco (B.A., Ph.D.) is Professor of Urban Governance and Development in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. His background is in Planning, Geography, and Urban Studies. He has published widely on the topics of urban governance and regeneration, urban sustainability, social diversity, and the politics of urban and regional economic development. He is currently leading a team at UCL that is working on an EU-funded project named DIVERCITIES that is exploring the governance and management of diversity polices in London and comparing them to other cities in the EU and in Canada. Recent works include: The Future of Sustainable Cities: Critical Reflections (with John Flint, Policy Press, Bristol); State-led Privatisation and the Demise of the Democratic State: Welfare Reform and Localism in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism (Routledge, London); and Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability and Community in a Global City (with Rob Imrie and Loretta Lees, Routledge, London). He formerly lectured at King’s College London and the Universities of Reading and Glasgow. Email: m.raco@ucl.ac.uk

Noel Clycq - University of Antwerp

Noel Clycq holds a master in communication sciences, an Advanced Master in Social and Cultural Anthropology and a PhD in Political and Social sciences. He is a professor and currently holds a chair in European Values: discourses and prospects at the faculty of Arts, and postdoctoral researcher and research coordinator at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS), both at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He studied topics such as the position of ethnic minorities and majorities in relation to media, education and the city. His PhD focused on family socialization processes in minority and majority families and related this to identity theory and power. From 2009 until 2012 he was the academic coordinator of a 4-year research project studying the school careers of Chinese, Moroccan, Polish and Turkish youth in the Flemish educational system. In 2012 he was also the coordinator of the Flemish Policy Research Centre on Integration. From 2013 until 2018 he is co-coordinating several work packages in a European 7th Framework project on Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe. Next to this he (co-)teaches four university courses: (1) Introduction to Anthropology, and (2) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Migration and Integration, (3) European values and identities, an introduction, (4) European values and identities in transforming societies. He has published articles in various international peer-reviewed as well as national journals. He also published a book and co-edited several others.

Sander Loones - Member of European Parliament (European Conservatives and Reformist Group)

Sander Loones is a Belgian MEP and member of the European Conservatives and Reformist Group, and he is Vice President of NIeuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (The New Flemish Alliance). In the parliament, Sander is Vice Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and a member of the delegation for relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Sander has previously worked for the Belgian Ministry of Interior Affairs in the migration office, and is a scientific researcher at the Law faculty of Catholic University Leuven, where he had earned his Master’s degree in Law.

Stijn Oosterlynck - University of Antwerp

Stijn Oosterlynck is Associate Professor in Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp, Sociology department. He is the chair of research centre OASeS and of the Antwerp Urban Studies Institute. He teaches courses on urban studies, urban social work, poverty and social exclusion. His research is concerned with local social innovation and welfare state restructuring, the political sociology of urban development and community building, civil society innovation, urban diversity and new forms of solidarity in diversity. He has published in a variety of international journals, amongst others Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Antipode, Environment and Planning A, and recently co-edited the volumes ‘Planning Against the Political’ (Routledge, 2014), ‘Place, Diversity and Solidarity’ (Routledge, 2016) and DIVERCITIES: Dealing with Diversity in Deprived and Mixed Neighbourhoods (Policy Press, 2017). He is member of the board of the community development organisation Samenlevingsopbouw Provincie Antwerpen, Architecture Workroom Brussels and chair of the board of the housing cooperative Collectief Goed.

Ulrike Hanna Meinhof - University of Southampton

Ulrike Hanna Meinhof is a professor at the University of Southampton and director of its Research Centre for Transnational Studies. Her EU and AHRC-funded research has focused on cultural identities ranging across such diverse subjects as the life stories of people in European border communities (EU border discourse), in multicultural cities and regions (Changing City Spaces/ Sefone) , and in migrant networks (TNMundi), and has led to a whole series of publications and joint projects with film-makers and musicians. Her current project ‘Madagascar in the world: the impact of music on global concerns’ is an AHRC follow-on project from her previous research with musicians in and from Madagascar. This research underpins her collaboration with the French film company Laterit for the music documentary Songs for Madagascar shown previously at the Screenplay Festival on the Shetland Islands (September 2016), The Southampton Film Week (November 2016), the Festival dei Popoli in Florence (November 2016), at La Reunion (February 2017), at the Black Film Festival in Berlin (May 2017) and will open in French cinemas in June 2017

Wouter Vandenhole - University of Antwerp

Wouter Vandenhole is an internationally recognized expert in transnational human rights obligations, human rights and development, and children’s rights. He has been invited as a guest lecturer to universities all over the world. He serves on the editorial board of several international journals and has taken up management functions in European research and teaching networks. He has undertaken projects and consultancies with or on behalf of international and national organisations, and has extensive field experience.